


two facing mirrors

by malfaisant



Category: Dishonored
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, High Chaos, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-23
Updated: 2016-03-21
Packaged: 2018-03-14 18:12:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3420626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malfaisant/pseuds/malfaisant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Empress has two shadows that follow her wherever she goes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> High chaos!Corvo/high chaos!Daud, which should be warning enough in itself. Rating will go up, warnings also added as I update.

_You find your way into such interesting places, Corvo. Left for dead in the midst of these flooded ruins, betrayed by your allies, having failed to protect Emily yet again. A mountain of corpses behind you, and this is what you have to show for it._

_Strange how there's always a little more innocence left to lose._

_You’ll wake up soon, to find your life in the hands of the man who murdered the Empress. Another of my marked. Hear him out, if you can manage to hold back your fangs but for a moment. Perhaps, in meeting you, he’ll become interesting once more..._

*

Corvo woke with a strained gasp. The air around him was stale and humid, heavy with the dank smell of mold and river water. A spotlight shone on his face, obscuring everything around him in bright white, straining his eyes. He tried to blink the spots out of his vision, and the blurred outline of several figures standing in front of him slowly emerged, though some of them dissolved into darkness just as immediately as he had discerned them.

He was tied to a chair, his hands bound behind his back. The last of the poison coursed sluggishly through his system, and his body still felt heavy with it, his senses lethargic from a long, troubled sleep.

A man stepped in front of the light. Though his eyes were still adjusting, and the man was half-covered in shadow, Corvo discovered a face familiar from wanted posters and his own nightmares alike.

_YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER_

“Daud,” he said, his voice cracking with disuse.

“Corvo,” the other man replied, his own voice harsh and rasping, with the quality of sandpaper and thick smoke. Daud pulled up a chair to sit directly in front of him, and crossed his arms across his chest. Corvo grit his teeth, as his initial surprise subsided to make way for anger and murderous impulse. He pulled at his restraints, rope grating against his wrists, and his mark burned, it _burned_ , he’ll cut the bastard's throat, blast him away with a gust of wind, or summon a swarm of rats to devour him—  

“Don’t get any ideas,” Daud interrupted. With a small nod of his head, he gestured to a man standing in the corner, wearing a Whaler’s mask and holding an Overseer’s music box. “A souvenir I recently acquired from our friends at the Abbey. I’m sure you’re familiar.”

The assassin watched him attentively, one hand poised on the lever of the music box, and the memory of its music made Corvo flinch. Begrudgingly, he canceled the magic pooling in his left hand, and turned back to Daud.

“I thought that should make you agreeable,” Daud said, with practiced indifference.

“What do you want,” Corvo replied brusquely. If he could bide for time, he could loosen the ropes, wring one hand free, though how he should manage to do so without giving himself away he had no idea. Despite his affectations, Daud’s eyes were sharp, his hawkish stare leaving him feeling exposed and vulnerable.

“The Lord Regent has a bounty on your head for 30,000 coins. Wager I could get more, with a bit of haggling. That’s enough coin to disappear for good.”

When Corvo remained silent, Daud continued. “Give me a reason why I shouldn’t.”

“Kill me now or you’ll regret it,” was what Corvo replied instead, but Daud hardly looked fazed.

“That’s probably true,” he said, “but I’d gather you have some unfinished business to attend to that you’d rather I won’t. There’s still the matter of the late Empress’ daughter.”

Corvo's hands curled into fists, the ropes buckling against the strain. “Don’t you dare—”

“If I hand your head over to Havelock, you won’t have any say in what becomes of her.”

“So is all this just so you can gloat?” Corvo growled viciously. ”Wasn’t enough to kill the Empress in front me, and take her daughter?“

Daud brought a hand up to his temple, closing his eyes, as though talking with Corvo was giving him a headache. “I’m giving you a choice, Lord Protector. Havelock and his men are holed up on Kingsparrow Island, and they have Emily with them. I can help you retrieve her.”

For the first time since he woke up, Corvo felt more bewildered than angry at the man in front of him. “Why?” he asked, honest confusion in his voice. “Why would you possibly want to help me?”

"Does it matter?"

Corvo gave him a venomous glare, which Daud accepted with an look of resignation.

“Fine, if it would satisfy your burning curiosity. I killed the Empress and I—I regret it," Daud said, slowly, as though the admission pained him. "And now I’m trying to make amends for it." His face, lined with scars and age, looked grim and tired at his words, the first indication Corvo had of Daud being anything less than calm and controlled. Corvo glared at Daud, trying to find some sort of tell in his character, some hint of the ruse he was trying to play, but if there was any proof that Daud was anything less than sincere, Corvo could not find it.

“I’m supposed to believe you?” he finally asked.

“You’re not exactly drowning in options.”

“What are you proposing?” As he spoke, behind his back, he pressed the knuckle of his left thumb against the palm of his right hand, waiting for some opening, some moment of opportunity.

“A truce."

Corvo scoffed. “A truce?”

”My skills, and the skills of my men, to aid you in rescuing the princess from her heavily fortified tower. You already know what I can do. So, instead of trying to kill each other, I want us to work together.”

“What’s to stop you from driving a knife in my back?”

Daud’s mouth twisted in some wretched imitation of a smile. “Nothing. Same thing that’d be stopping you.”

It took only a second. Gritting his teeth against the pain, Corvo dislocated his left thumb with a vicious crack, allowing him enough give to wrench his left hand through the ropes. His hands now free, he blinked to the far end of the room and grabbed an assassin’s blade off the table. With a second motion of his left hand, time stopped. Everything blurred into a dull gray, thick dust motes frozen in beams of sunlight, but he had hardly turned around before a knife clashed against his, the clang of metal on metal muffled, as though heard from underwater. Daud was right in front of him, pushing their crossed blades against his neck, the Outsider's mark shining bright on his left hand through the black leather of his glove. “That won’t work against me, Corvo.”

Corvo pushed him off and lunged forward, blade aimed at Daud’s throat, but Daud was fast on his feet, dodging and answering with a lightning-quick riposte. Corvo hissed as the knife cut into his forearm, took a step back, looked for an opening to blink through, but Daud relentlessly pressed his advantage, carving away at his defenses.

“Why are you fighting? For your dead Empress? For the men who poisoned you and left you to die?” Daud snarled. “Go on, strike as if you mean it!”

Corvo swung wildly at him with the blade, but the blow was easily parried. His muscles ached with fatigue, and the world slowly bled back into colour as the effects of his magic wound away. A shot from the small crossbow on Daud’s wrist darted past him, grazing his cheek. Panic welled up as he continued to lose ground, inch by inch, Daud slowly cornering him against the wall. The other assassins stood around them, poised to strike, merely waiting on Daud's word to do so. Outnumbered, his powers rendered inert, equipped only with a knife, Corvo knew he could only last so long before—

The dull edge of Daud’s knife came down hard on the knuckles of Corvo’s right hand, forcing him to drop his blade. Corvo leaned back, curling his left fist to blink away, but Daud caught his feet with a wide sweep of his leg and, with his free hand, grabbed Corvo by his neck. Corvo fell to the ground on his back, hands clawing at the grip around his throat, but the knifepoint held an inch away from his eyes made him go still.

There was a pause, in which both of them were silent aside from his laboured breathing. Daud had him pinned down, knees straddling his waist, and Corvo could do nothing but bare his teeth at him.

Daud was the first to speak. “I don’t want to fight you, Corvo,” he said, sounding weary.

“You killed her,” Corvo said, barely holding back angry tears. “You killed her.”

“Yes, I killed her. I wish I hadn’t done it, but I can’t take that back,” Daud replied, before lowering his sword, then releasing the grip on Corvo’s neck. He sat back on his heels, allowing Corvo to sit up, and Corvo immediately reached for his disarmed blade and held it up against Daud’s neck. To his surprise, Daud didn’t move away, only tilted his chin up as if to offer easier access to his throat.

“Why do you want to help me?” he whispered, sounding desperate even to his own ears.

“When I killed the Empress...something broke inside of me,” Daud answered. “She was different. She didn’t deserve what I did to her.”

“You said it yourself. There’s nothing you can do to change that.”

“Yet I still regret it.”

“W—why should I care about some old man and his regrets?”

Daud stared at him, eyes cold and hard, unwavering, even as the hand holding a blade against his throat shook with ill-concealed anger. “Because you need me, if you want to save your Emily.”

The image came unbidden in his mind, Jessamine lying in a pool of her own blood, red bubbling in her mouth, dying, she won't stop _dying_ —

“Because you’re alone and betrayed, with no shortage of enemies to destroy,” Daud continued. A small line of blood trickled down his neck from where the edge of Corvo's knife dug into his neck.

_YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER_

“Let me help you destroy them.”


	2. Chapter 2

Daud told him they would set out for Kingsparrow Island in five days. Corvo needed the time to recover, he'd explained, while Daud needed the time to arrange supplies, transport, planning the assault on the fortress itself.

The first day was the most unbearable, because Corvo had to concede Daud was right. The poison still lingered in his system, his mana reserves depleted. The thumb he had dislocated was fractured, his left hand set in a splint, and the cut on his forearm needed stitches. Even so, the idleness made him more tense than the constant barrage of pistol-fire to which he’d grown accustomed, the frantic to-and-fro of one mission after another as the Loyalists came up with name after name, and his disposing of targets on command like a trained, rabid dog.

If he wanted, he could leave Daud behind, manage his own way to the lighthouse and hunt down the Loyalists himself. After all, he had cut through the impregnable fortress of Dunwall Tower on his own. His blade had found its way into Hiram Burrows’ throat. No reason to think he couldn’t do the same with Havelock.

He was given a bed on the third floor, one of the less ruined rooms in the Chamber of Commerce building; three of the four walls were mostly undamaged, with the last only half-caved in by a collapsed column. The threadbare cot was pushed up against one of the intact walls, a supply crate next to it serving as a makeshift bedside table, and a pair of blue and red vials were left on top of his pillow. A stone basin with clean rainwater was on the floor, at the far corner of the room.

The Whalers materialised now and then at his doorway to drop off some food or medical supplies without a word, before disappearing just as quickly. His weapons were returned to him sometime in the afternoon. Aside from that, he was left alone, no guard, no orders.

He sat on the floor next to the basin to replace his dressings; red seeped out of the bloodied bandages as they soaked in the water, muddying to the color of rust. His left hand still in its poor condition, he carefully arranged one-handed his weapons in a half-circle around him: pistol, crossbow, folding blade, various ammunition, runes. The mask. The Heart he set aside on its own, beating quietly, almost imperceptibly. Sunlight streamed in through the window and the broken wall, glinting on the sharp edge of his knife; through the wall, he could see Jessamine’s statue in the distance, looking proudly above her flooded city.

The message was clear. Corvo was free to leave, just as before, if he felt like cutting off his nose to spite his face. Make a desperate attempt to get Emily on his own, or do it with help from Daud and his men.

He thought of Emily, hidden away once more like a precious trump card, and his blood raged. How could he not have foreseen this? Burrows, the Loyalists, they were all same. He never should’ve trusted anyone—only Corvo could protect her. Daud...of course he couldn’t be trusted either, but who said he needed to trust him? Corvo would deal with him, after Emily was safe.

*

Corvo slept restlessly that night. He dreamed of the Void, but the Outsider was nowhere to be seen. This time, he was amidst the floating ruins of a lighthouse, a tower broken apart into rubble and winding staircases. He transversed through the ruins, towards wherever he saw the eerie violet glow of lanterns, but there was no one there.

He reached the top of the lighthouse, stood next to the dimly lit floodlight, and looked out into the wide expanse of forever before him. He was all alone, with only the emptiness and the quiet for company, the kind of deep, heavy quiet that pressed down on you—the quiet of some sleeping leviathan, at the bottom of the ocean.

*

The days leading up to their venture went much the same way as the first. Daud called him in at times to look over blueprints of the lighthouse, discussing strategy and timelines, where patrols were heaviest, where Daud should direct his men. On the third day, Daud revealed that their transport would pick them up at the harbor in the Old Port District. His scouts already knew of the City Watch presence in the area, newly reinforced after Havelock’s ascent to Lord Regent, but it had been Corvo’s first request of Daud. The Hound Pits Pub was a detour, but Corvo wanted to know of any trail, anything left to salvage.

Later that evening, the Whaler that dropped off his supper also came bearing another message from Daud: an invitation to spar, if he felt so inclined. He thought about crumpling the note in his hand, but the idea of facing Daud on more even terms demanded his curiosity well enough that he soon found himself at the doorway of the training room, armed with only his knife-belt.

The quiet conversation in the room died out entirely as soon as Corvo materialised. Daud looked him up and down, but kept whatever assessment he had of Corvo to himself, even as his gaze lingered over Corvo's left hand and forearm.

"I won't be holding back," said Corvo. Against Daud, he figured his partially healed injuries were enough of a handicap that he could afford to fight seriously—and if he was wrong, well, it would only mean that Daud's help wasn't all that invaluable after all.

“In that case, I'll just have to try my best not to get killed then,” replied Daud easily. "Let's get started."

Wordlessly, the other assassins moved to the edges of the room, leaving the center open; a bright spotlight illuminated the room, its wide beam demarcating the boundary of a circle on the floor. They agreed to fight with only weapons first, no powers. Corvo took out the retractable blade and faced Daud calmly, but it was the sort of calm that masked something dangerous beneath it, thin as a brittle pane of glass.

Corvo attacked first, quickly stepping forward and to the side, aiming an underhand slash just below Daud’s ribs. Daud countered with a wide block of his own knife, the sharp edge of it sliding right up to against the bladeguard; in nearly the same motion, Daud drove his elbow forward, aiming cleanly for Corvo’s jaw, giving Corvo only a moment to intercept the blow, bringing up his forearm to protect his face.

Sparring with Daud seriously was unlike any training, or even like any real battle that Corvo had been subject to before. Corvo attacked with intent, but each one was met with equal and opposite resistance. Daud's every move was calculated with speed and deliberate grace, no motion ever wasted, piled so that each successive attack started on the tails of the other. He felt as though he was constantly only just deflecting a knife’s edge mere inches from his throat.

With some frustration, Corvo switched his grip on the knife, and raised his arm to stab downwards; if the strike had connected, the knife would’ve been buried to the hilt in Daud’s shoulder. But the action was too open, Corvo realised too late, as Daud retaliated with a sidestep, into the inside of Corvo’s guard. He caught Corvo by the wrist, turning the knife away from him, while his other arm he weaved under and around Corvo's shoulder. The momentum took Corvo’s balance, and a sweep of a leg against the back of his knees had him falling on his back to the ground.

“Don’t be so hasty to kill me, Lord Protector,” Daud said, the blunt edge of his knife now resting against Corvo’s neck. “It's only a spar, and you shouldn't strain yourself so hard before you’ve yet to fully recover.”

“At least it looks like your pet name isn’t all for show,” Corvo said, even as he subtly tried to keep his breathing flat. It wouldn’t do to keep giving Daud the satisfaction of anger at every little frustration, and make him aware of how he could so easily get under his skin.

Daud gave a small shrug, before he stepped away from Corvo. “The reputation has its uses,” he said. “Now, let’s see how you do with The Outsider’s gifts. Blinking only,” he added, a hint of exasperation in his voice, “There’s already enough rats around here without your summoning some more.”

Corvo pulled himself up to his feet. Tempting as the idea was, a swarm could hardly be enough to kill Daud, and would therefore only be a waste of mana. Flexing his right hand, he nodded curtly, and brought up his knife, readying for his next attack.

*

On the morning of the assault, Corvo went through his routines methodically, almost mechanically. Knife sheathed at his side, pistol in its holster, crossbow slung over his back. The mask he put on last, closing his eyes as the lenses calibrated into place. Then he tranversed through the broken wall, onto an exposed wooden beam, atop a vent line on the side of the building until he reached the roof.

The Whalers were already assembled there, with Daud at the front, standing on top of Jessamine’s statue. He turned as Corvo approached his side, and in his scarlet coat it seemed as if he would disappear against the bleeding backdrop of the dawn behind him.

“Ready to go?”

Corvo nodded wordlessly, and they set out, one by one dissolving into darkness. The Outsider’s mark burned bright on his hand.

*

They made short work of the men at the Hound Pits, most of the guards dead before the alarm was even raised. As Corvo pulled his blade out from a guard’s back, Daud killed the officer beside him with the bow on his wrist pressed against his neck. His assassins flocked around the tallboys like a murder of crows, bringing them down with a bolt to the throat, or a bullet to the tanks on their backs.

Corvo’s first stop was the tower where Emily had been held. The room was empty, but he’d expected as much. The signs of obvious struggle made his blood boil, but there was nothing to suggest that Emily had been hurt.

The same could not be said of the Hound Pits’ former occupants. Corvo had found Callista, along with the other servants, their bodies laid out unceremoniously in the courtyard. He knelt beside her corpse, closed her wide, terrified eyes, and pulled the rough canvas sheet back over her face.

“Seems Havelock’s been busy tying loose ends,” called out a gruff voice from behind him.

“It was a purge. We’d all served our purpose,” said Corvo, recalling the words Samuel said to him through the haze of poison. The man who saved his life was nowhere to be found among the dead, and Corvo could only hope he was already somewhere far away. “We were all disposable.”

“In my line of work, a mark was a mark, and it didn’t matter what they’ve done so long as the client had enough coin for it,” Daud replied with practiced indifference, wiping down his blade with a dirty rag. “But it’s nice to know when a target deserves death.”

Corvo resisted the urge to snap back, that _he_ would be the one to kill Havelock. Emily’s safety was his priority. Instead, he asked, “Have your men found anything?”

“We found Sokolov and Joplin in the workshop. They’re eager to help you, if it means getting back at Havelock, and also so we wouldn’t kill them.”

The news made him pause. Corvo didn’t care for the two scientists. Piero was harmless enough, granted, but he still remembered the human subjects in Sokolov’s lab, starved lab rats who begged for death after one experiment too many, all in vain to catch the favor of a disinterested god. But Emily could use them when she is Empress; he would leave them be, for now.

After a moment, Corvo got to his feet and nodded curtly at Daud. “Have your men gather the dead. We leave at noon high.”

The _Undine_ pulled up into the riverbank soon thereafter. As they sailed down the Wrenhaven, the Hound Pits burned down behind them in a blazing bonfire, thick black smoke trailing up to the overcast sky, amongst thick grey clouds heavy with the promise of a brewing storm.

They had no time to bury the corpses. Better for the fire to claim them, than to be left for the rats to gnaw on their bones.


	3. Chapter 3

The water churned uneasily as they docked at Kingsparrow Island, the roiling sea threatening to swallow the lighthouse on its fortress of bare rock. High above them, the beacon flared bright white against the grey skies, the thunder drowning out their already noiseless footsteps.

If Daud had thought Corvo was reckless before, he had to revise that thought now. With Daud and his assassins watching his back, Corvo moved like a battering ram, cutting through guards and overseers indiscriminately. The shouting rose, the alarm raised, but the blaring klaxons could do nothing to halt their advance. Where Corvo was the sharp point of their knife, piercing through the ranks, the Whalers followed behind him like a fine sieve, leaving nothing but death in their wake. A whirlwind trail of red, followed by a blanketing darkness.

Daud had always preferred to move in the shadows, and he saw no point in changing old habits now, when they served his purposes just as well.

He arrived at the gatehouse, which had escaped the brunt of Corvo’s carnage. The last guard standing inhaled sharply as Daud slid the knife between his ribs, more out of surprise than pain. As he pulled out the blade, warm blood spilling on his boots, there was a metallic click behind him, the sound of a pistol being cocked.

“This is the last place I would’ve expected to see the Knife of Dunwall,” said a voice.

Daud turned slowly, facing the barrel of Teague Martin’s pistol, the man himself standing in the shadow of the gatehouse entrance. He regarded Martin with a blank look, before smiling mirthlessly. “High Overseer, huh? Looks like we’re all moving up in the world.”

The High Overseer bared his teeth at him, rimmed red with blood. “I guess even Corvo isn’t above forming allegiances of convenience.”

“To be fair, I had to twist his arm to get him to accept my help. Bad move, by the way, trying to kill him.”

“You don’t need to tell me. But why are you helping him at all? You killed his precious Empress. You know he’ll kill you after you’re done being useful.”

Daud shrugged, felt his Whalers blink past their location as they moved on ahead. “Maybe I’ve seen the error of my ways, High Overseer. Trying to repent for my sins, or whatever it is you’re supposed to do.”

“We will burn a bright fire with our virtuous actions so that others will not lose their way,” Martin recited monotonously, before he laughed and lowered his pistol. “That’s a good joke, Daud,” he said, before turning his back and walking inside the gatehouse.

Daud stood at the doorway as Martin pulled up a chair and sat down at a table, his shoulders slumped, as if exhausted.

“A bigger joke than a faithless highwayman being the head of the Abbey?”

“Maybe not, but you have to admit it isn’t quite as tasteless,” Martin said, examining his gun with an air of distraction. “Pity you couldn’t have grown a conscience before you took Burrows’ contract. Then we could avoided this whole mess.”

Even if the pistol had still been aimed at him, Martin would still have to pull a trigger, would still have to wait for the ball to travel through the air. It would take only a twitch of Daud’s hand to bring time to a halt, and a few steps for his knife to find its mark. They both knew this, but Martin did not have the countenance of a man desperately trying to buy time with his words.

“Is this a sermon, Lord Overseer?”

“That’d make me a hell of a hypocrite now, won’t it. Then again,” Martin continued thoughtfully, “we’re all hypocrites, best intentions be damned. There is no greater good great enough that it cannot be extinguished by the evil acts committed in its name, so long as you commit enough of them.”

It seemed as though there was a point that all men eventually reached, when guilt overwhelmed everything else, enough to drive them to seeking absolution from the most desperate of places. Daud recognised his own kind easily enough.

“So a confession, then?”

Martin laughed again. He put the pistol down on the table, rested his forehead on his hands, fingers clasped together like a man in prayer. “You’re in no position to forgive my sins,” he said, but left the rest unsaid, that the knife in Daud’s hand could try regardless.

“Burrows, Havelock, even you, Martin…we’re all rotten to the core,” Daud replied, as he put his blade back in its sheath. “There is no saving any of us. We all deserve to die at Corvo’s hand. Would you accept retribution, when it comes for you?”

He glanced at the pistol, resting on the table. “Or would you deny it the privilege, and attempt it on your own?”

Martin didn’t answer, and Daud didn’t wait for it. He blinked to the landing outside, his Whalers trailing after him like black smoke. Daud had chosen his path. He would leave it up to Martin to discover how to live with his regrets, or to discover that he can’t.

*

They darted like shadows, following the deadly path Corvo had left up the winding staircase and to the topmost level of the tower. By the time Daud arrived at the roof, Corvo was already standing over Havelock’s body, his blade bright with blood and gristle.

There was a faint sound, like some sort of crying bird, before Daud realised it was the high-pitched laughter of the child-empress. Emily stood beside the corpse, her white blouse stained with blood. She pitched forward, wrapping her arms around Corvo’s waist.

“Oh, Corvo! I knew you would come,” she said. “I knew you would come for me, that you would kill them all.”

Corvo fell to his knees and held her close, embracing her in his arms, smearing red in her hair.

*

The night before their assault on the lighthouse, Daud dreamt of the Outsider for the first time since he defeated Delilah. There was the telltale rustle of shadows behind him as he sat on the steps of an endless staircase, floating in the empty quiet of the Void.

“You’re still watching then.”

“It’s not a turn of events that I foresaw, admittedly,” said the Outsider. “I did not expect your conscience to drive you this far. It’s quite late, is it not, to try to wash the blood from your hands now?”

“Would be pointless, wouldn’t it? To wash away the blood with more blood?” Daud asked.

The Outsider smiled. “Forgive me. I had thought you had somehow deluded yourself into thinking you could still find redemption.”

Daud laughed and leaned back on the steps, resting on his elbows. Despite his supposed agelessness, there were moments that struck Daud of how oddly, painfully young his god was. He wondered if the Outsider was hearing his thoughts now—no doubt he could, but something told Daud that he chose not to, more often than not, a child who wished to know how a toy worked but did not want to break it apart. It was why he bothered asking questions at all.

“If it’s not absolution you seek…” The Outsider trailed off, still waiting on his answer.

“I have debts to pay,” Daud finally said.

“Yours are not debts that can ever be repaid.”

“That’s not up to you. Not up to me either.”

“So you place your fate in Corvo’s hands.” Then the Outsider paused, looking thoughtful. “It is more a burden than a gift.”

Daud did not reply. He would not deny it, that whatever drove him forward did not come from a place of selflessness.

The ruins of Dunwall floated all around them, the ambient glow of streetlamps shining upon the remnants of its grandest houses, the stone foundation of its tallest towers, ground to dust and rubble. Shipwreck, at the bottom of the ocean. In this hollow, in-between place, full of restless spirits, Daud would only ever find a pale imitation of peace, but men like him did not deserve peace anyway.

_*_

”I’m tired of being afraid,” a small, frail voice had said, in a hushed murmur. “When I’m empress, I’m going to make everyone else afraid instead. Just like you, Corvo.”

Emily Kaldwin turned to Daud and asked him, holding onto Corvo’s sleeve as she spoke, “Who are you?”

She was a far cry from the girl Daud had abducted all those months ago, her stare hard and brittle. Eyes that had seen far too much, yet still the eyes of a child. Corvo stood at her shoulder, watching Daud carefully.

“I am Daud, your Highness,” he answered, bowing his head.

“Daud? As in the assassin Daud, the Knife of Dunwall?”

“I am an assassin, and nothing more.”

Emily regarded him curiously, before she looked up at Corvo with a tug on his sleeve, a question plain on her face. But Corvo did not turn away from Daud, as though he feared what he might do if he took his eyes off him for even a moment.

“And with whom does your allegiance lie, Mr. Knife of Dunwall?” Emily asked.

Slowly, deliberately, Daud unsheathed his knife, his eyes closed all the while. There was the click of a retractable blade, Emily whispering “Corvo, wait—” but Daud ignored it all as he knelt down on one knee, and pressed the fist that held the knife against his heart.

Daud opened his eyes. “My only wish is to serve the Empress.”

Emily was silent, staring at the assassin with a contemplative expression. Corvo held his arm in front of her, shielding her from Daud, his knife ready to strike.

“You pledge your loyalty to the crown? To the Empire?”

“My loyalty is to you alone.”

“Corvo doesn’t trust you, obviously. Why should I?”

“I can only give you my word. You will have to decide for yourself whether my word is trustworthy.”

“If I wanted,” Emily said, carefully, “I can ask Corvo to kill you right now.”

Daud shot a darting glance at Corvo. He had pulled up his mask, and Daud could see his furrowed brows, his mouth a thin line. But the newly reinstated Lord Protector remained silent, waiting for him to speak...or perhaps for the Empress’ permission.

“If the Empress wanted,” Daud answered, his voice calm, almost dispassionate, “you can ask me to slit my throat with my own knife.”

Corvo’s eyes widened, wordless in his surprise, but Emily simply nodded, satisfied with his answer.

“Very well,” she said, with all the imperiousness of her bloodline behind her words. “Rise, Daud the assassin. You shall be my new spymaster.”

*

They spend the night on the island, as the storm bore down and the seething waters drummed tall waves upon the rocks. Daud’s assassins patrolled the lower levels lighthouse, while Corvo stayed with Emily in her room, formerly her prison. She changed out of her bloodstained clothes and crawled tiredly into her bed.

When Corvo was certain she wasn’t feigning sleep, he exited the room, locking the door behind him.

It did not take much searching to find where Daud had gone. He was sitting on the steps that led up to the roof, smoking a cigar. Several moments passed in terse silence, the rain pattering incessantly against the glass panes.

“What are you playing at, Daud?” Corvo asked.

“I offered the Empress my allegiance, or my life, if she so desired. Same thing I offered you, if you recall.”

“Our arrangement is over.”

Daud took a long drag from his cigar, and blew out a thick cloud of smoke. “So it is, Lord Protector. And no doubt you can kill me as you intended, now that Emily has been rescued. But the Empress has asked for my services, and I intend to carry out her orders, if you don’t object.”

“And if I do object?”

“You remember the last time you tried to protect an Empress alone?”

Corvo blinked the distance between them, closing his hands around Daud’s neck, pushing him so that the steps dug into his back.

“I can tell her you killed the Empress,” Corvo said, but Daud remained unfazed, unresisting.

“You think that girl doesn’t remember the face of the man who killed her mother right in front of her?”

Corvo’s hands shook, whether in anger at Daud or fear that Emily could be capable of such cold, impassive calculation, he could not say for sure.

Could Corvo truly trust him? Daud had a dozen chances to betray Corvo, a dozen chances to kill him, but time and time again, he had only bared his throat, with no reason to expect that Corvo would stay his hand. If Daud had had a dozen chances to kill him, he’d given Corvo at least twice that.

A part of Corvo screamed at him to finish it, that he should kill Daud now, perhaps the same part that spent its nights replaying the death of the Empress in his mind, over and over. But fear now gripped a greater piece of his heart, a vision of Emily in a pool of her own blood. Just because Burrows and Havelock and all the other conspirators were dead did not mean that Emily was safe. They had no allies, not in parliament, not in the aristocracy, not in the godforsaken city of Dunwall.

Even Emily knew it, that it was better to have Daud on their side than to be alone and friendless.

The question wasn’t whether he could trust Daud, but whether he could afford not to.

Corvo drew back, blinking away so that he stood at the foot of the stairs. Daud put a hand up to his neck, massaging his throat.

“Should I start expecting you to do that often?” Daud asked drily, but Corvo ignored him in favour of walking away to stand guard in front of Emily’s room.

He could always kill him later.

*

_And so begins the reign of Emily Kaldwin. Emily the Wise, Emily the Great, Emily the Terrible. Emily Drexel Lela Kaldwin, Empress of the Isles and the First of Her Name. Emily, the High Queen of Rats. The Empress will have many names, because no one name can encompass the entirety of her rule—beautiful and heartless, ruthless and absolute. Pragmatic, to the point of cruelty._

_The Heart trembles, thrums frantically, cuts into your palms when you hold it in your hands. But her words cut deeper, thundering in anger and sorrow, her wailing cries echoing in despair. You cannot bear to hear her, dear Corvo. You cannot bear to hold her._


End file.
